Rendell plans 13% cut in higher-education budget

Pennsylvania's higher-education budget would shrink more than 13 percent under Gov. Rendell's latest spending proposal.

Overall, funding for higher education would fall $288 million, to $1.83 billion, but not all schools would suffer equally.

Thanks in part to federal stimulus money, appropriations would remain steady for the 14 universities in Pennsylvania's State System of Higher Education and for the state's community colleges.

But the four state-related universities - Pennsylvania State University, Temple, Lincoln University in Chester County, and the University of Pittsburgh - would face cuts of 18 percent each.

The state money funneled to Penn State, for example, would total $277.4 million, down about $60 million from the current year. Temple's appropriation would tumble nearly $32 million, to $143.9 million. Pitt would get $140 million, an approximately $30 million hit; in "absolute dollars," the appropriation was higher 15 years ago, Pitt chancellor Mark Nordenberg said.

The four schools would be locked out of federal stimulus funding under Rendell's proposal. That prompted their presidents to send letters last week to the U.S. Department of Education, urging it to reject Pennsylvania's education-related stimulus-funding plan.

Federal education officials did not return calls for comment yesterday.

State-aided schools, many of them medical programs such as the Pennsylvania College of Optometry, will lose state funding entirely under the current budget proposal. Drexel University's appropriation of nearly $7 million would disappear.

The University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine would face what officials called a crippling cut of 24 percent.

"We can't do it without shutting down some major units," Joan C. Hendricks, the school's dean, said in a telephone interview yesterday. "It's devastating."

The veterinary school would receive $32.5 million, a $10.3 million reduction. The state appropriation typically accounts for about 45 percent of the school's operating budget.

According to the Rendell administration, the cuts are the result of a precipitous decline in state revenue. The state is in the second week of its new fiscal year without a spending plan as negotiations continue in Harrisburg.

The administration justifies treating state-related schools differently from schools within the state system because Harrisburg has more control over tuition and budgets at the latter.

"We believe they have done a good job in holding costs down. Consequently, we are more prone to fund them," Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo said.

In a June 29 letter to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Penn State president Graham B. Spanier took exception to Rendell's stance.

"It is not in the governor's power to arbitrarily define the legal status of institutions simply because he does not exercise 'absolute control' over them," Spanier wrote.

He called on Duncan to "compel the commonwealth to use federal funds to maintain state support for every public institution of higher education in Pennsylvania, including the state-related universities."

Ardo maintained that Rendell had the legal right to treat the schools differently. He called the letters from Spanier and other presidents "an expression of opinion" with "no legal bearing."

The Penn veterinary school already had braced for a 10 percent funding cut that Rendell proposed earlier this year; it laid off 15 percent of veterinary hospital staff and froze salaries and recruitment, Hendricks said.

She also expressed concern about having to pull back on public-health research and testing. Other states are making cuts to their veterinary schools, too, she said, and that could have major consequences for public health.

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